


Of Misrule

by Halikaarnian



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-05
Updated: 2017-04-05
Packaged: 2018-10-15 01:55:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,297
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10548080
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Halikaarnian/pseuds/Halikaarnian
Summary: Two years after Voldemort, the war generation are finding their footing and assuming the reins of power. The wanderers and the wounded are coming back to roost. And in the new spirit of openness and inquiry, some very dangerous experiments are taking place where they will be least expected.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Postwar, very AU, vaguely fix-it fic. Specifically, I have played with the timeline to make some (minor in canon) characters a few years older for plot reasons, and to move Muggle-world events closer to the end of the war against Voldemort. Given that it's AU, this shouldn't bother anyone too much. Debts of influence should be clear to those who have read the classics of the genre. Takes place about 2 years after the Battle of Hogwarts. Don't expect relationships to be a central focus of the story, at least for a good long while. Will be updated semi-weekly.

Chapter One

 

During the construction of the M6, several farmers refused to sell their land. Fifty years later, they remain there, herding sheep and planting crops between the split lanes of the highway.

 

Hermione had told her that, she remembered, as she wearily touched down on the Muggle-repelling acre of Essex meadow which constituted her penultimate Apparition Point. It was June the 2nd, nearly dark, and the still air was giving up to a thunderstorm in the distance; the oak trees that bounded the field were framed in a bizarre yellow light, their leaves just beginning to waver in the first tendrils of approaching wind. Hermione had told her that, had meant it in either awe or frustration with her stubbornness, in arguing for the evidence of things not seen.

 

As Luna Lovegood's chunky silver wristwatch ticked home on nine o'clock, she turned her head to see three figures broaching a gap in the trees and heading towards her. Luna flicked her wand at the large baggage trunk by her side, and it levitated alongside as she made a slow pace to meet her welcoming committee.

 

~

 

Much as she needed her long sojourn on the Continent, and loved the solitude, Luna is very glad to be back. They're sitting around a bonfire; her, and Neville, and Ginny, and the slightly odd addition of Charlie Weasley, who is back in England to 'beg for Knuts from the Ministry,' as he puts it, for his dragon programme in Rumania. They're at Shell Cottage; Bill and Fleur are in France until the next evening, showing off baby Remus to Fleur's parents; Charlie is house-sitting.

 

It's a pensive gathering, neither weepy nor especially celebratory. Luna might call it sober, but for the fact that they've all had a few nips of Muggle brandy. They're looking into the fire, and having a rather languid conversation about the places they've found themselves in, lately. Neville finishes an anecdote about a Venomous Tentacula being fed firewhiskey, which is the humorous exception rather than the rule to the present conversation, and Luna feels compelled to pipe up.

 

She talks about her wanderings--across Holland and Germany, and Hungary, down into Italy, then a stay of a few months in a hut in the Greek mountains, walking down to the _taverna_ for solitary dinners in the evenings, and practicing occlumency on stray goats who were trying to eat her laundry. She admits to a feeling of guilt for leaving England so soon; only about four months after the Battle. Neville waves his hand in a perish-the-thought motion. "I wouldn't. Not to say we can't bloody use you--oh, and about that, if you want to avoid owls bearing job offers, I'd keep the news you're back quiet--but you deserved every bit of it. Probably smarter than most of us--didn't dare leave London, though I'm not sure we helped much." Luna shakes her head and says she doesn't believe them.

But Ginny chimes in. "No, honestly, Neville's right. They won't even let us start Auror training until we've done a course of therapy at St Mungo's. You should have seen Harry--" Neville gives a galumphing chuckle."Well, and you right behind him." Ginny acknowledges the point. "Hermione was nearly as angry," Ginny adds.

That surprises Luna. " _Hermione_ wasn't planning on the Aurors?"

"No, of course not. I gather it's more of a personal issue--what was it, 'Well, you know how I feel about psycho-wizardry'. She interrogated the healer they sent to talk to us, and the poor bloke had never heard of some Muggle expert, so..."

"Ah, that makes sense." She studies her friends' half-illuminated faces for a moment. It’s going to be strange, to return to that world where she will see these people regularly. Good, but strange. Though they all share some sense of outsider fellow-feeling, she knows that her craving for solitude will always far outstrip theirs. The only one who might come close is the one who, by the very public demonstration of talent, will never be allowed to exercise that craving, now, lest their world fall down. They have never been close, but Luna feels immensely for that fate. And she asks.

 

“Hermione? You really haven’t been getting the papers--” Neville pauses to remember that Luna has a particular relationship to the Wizarding press, on several different fronts. “Maybe all for the better, they haven’t done especially well on the finer details. Hermione’s fixing the Ministry, of course. Shacklebolt wanted her for—well, anything, really, and right away. Hermione said no.” He looks as if he expects surprise, if Luna has really been this far out of the loop. But Luna only nods. She doesn’t doubt that Hermione wants to be useful, but the Ministry—even a new Ministry under Shacklebolt—is nothing to blithely take oaths to. “She said that it was high time the Ministry learned to properly value an expert opinion. She formed a consulting firm, hired a Wizarding attorney—Gran helped her with that bit--, and signed a five-year contract with the Ministry for a really staggering load of gold—Shacklebolt was nearly pale. Hermione was rather embarrassed about the amount, even, except she said that she had to be sure that the Ministry paid her enough so that they absolutely couldn’t stuff her reports down a Vanishing Closet when she told them what they didn’t want to hear. She sunk most of it into R&D right away, anyhow—hired Mr Weasley, and Percy, and half the last year’s crop of Ravenclaws to boot.” Ginny interjects: “Ron, of course, had to make a crack about SPEW getting an endowment. What he got was the broken back of a very annoyed camel.”

 

~

 

The next morning, she wakes on a fold-a-bed , laid out on the screened veranda, facing the cliffs and the sea. Even if she wasn't presently avoiding home, and the complicated issue of her father, this would have been her first stop. There was a point, some days after her rescue from that house of horrors down in Wiltshire, when this place became her home, so far as she possessed one.

 

There was a part of her travels she hadn't related to her friends last night, though she was surprised they hadn't asked about it, given her stated itinerary. It hadn't even been intentional--she had barely given a thought to Durmstrang or its' inhabitants in some years. Chance, though, or the pale imitation that sufficed among wizards, had made its' offer.

 

For the first few weeks, Luna had mostly stuck to country byways, the better for solitary reflection. Her meanderings had sometimes resolved themselves toward Muggle cathedrals; in third year Neville had passed her a paperback of _A Time Of Gifts_ , and she was not the first to wonder if those luminous shrines could glitter as transcendently to anyone else. She gave the Black Forest a wide berth--too many wizards and witches about, what with the Harz Institut. But, whether from Fermorian attraction or a low desire to socialize, she took a Muggle train into Vienna, where she promptly ran into Viktor Krum in a Muggle coffee shop.

 

To be fair, it was a very large, famous, and centrally-located Muggle coffee shop, but that still didn't explain why Krum was there. Luna didn't bother to ask. Witches and wizards, as a rule, are rarely surprised to run into each other in their own over-stuffed little realm; the Muggle world is a different story. Luna, though...Luna is a great believer in chance, and maybe, if pressed, a little afraid of the consequences of examining it too closely. The essential elements of _Felix Felicis_ , after all, have to do with a flow state, artificially primed, which then feeds off itself. Strip away the propulsion, the artful rhythm that allows a witch to act in a more perfect harmony with the energy around her, and all the magic herbs in the world won't do a thing for you. Luna had searched for a table all the way till the very back of the _haus_ , where a ragged circle of vacancies seemed to surround a tall young man, leaned over a much-too-small table, reading a book. Luna recognized, of course, the telltale sign of a Muggle-repelling charm, but thought it a bit rude in this venue--after all, the rest of the place was swarming with Muggles, surely they would have liked a few more tables, if the young man's spell had allowed them to be made conscious of?

 

She was about to say as much when he raised his head, no doubt alerted by the wards he had set. Luna had spoken perhaps five words to Viktor Krum, ever, but she had remembered Hermione approving of him, strongly, in ways that surprised her. Doubly surprising, actually, because it was rare for Hermione to be impressed with anyone's book-smarts, and even more so for Hermione to admit to fancying someone. Luna still remembered the look on Hermione's face, that day in the spring of Luna's third year. She had tagged after Ginny to the library; unsurprisingly, they had encountered Hermione there. Ginny had given Hermione some mild ribbing about Krum, and Hermione had gone all solemn, as if she had expelled years of childhood in the deep breath she took before turning around in her chair. "Viktor--" she waved her hand as if to banish any sly remark Ginny might have about being on a first-name basis (all the boys at Hogwarts called him Krum, the habit of which they'd learned from the Quidditch broadcasts) "is possibly the first person I have met in this entire... _world..._ with a proper grasp of _history._ " And there had been some giggles about that, most suppressed, although it did still bear a laugh--Hermione Granger falls for an international celebrity because he knows _history_. But they let her continue. "He said--and I quite agree--that we British seem to think that we could make Voldemort stay dead if we wished it so, and hushed the doubters. Our Defense classes are inadequate, and the Ministry thinks it can stamp out Dark activity by banning books. As if the Malfoys don't have all those books hidden in some Unplottable attic! Any Pureblood at least knows where to look for Dark stuff. Meanwhile, Muggle-borns don't even know about the curses that will be used against them." Attracted by the ruckus (and perhaps the unusual spectacle of Hermione raising her voice in the library), Penelope Clearwater and another Ravenclaw had drifted to the outer edges of the group. Hermione registered their presence but continued unabated.

 

"And Karkaroff may have been a Death Eater, and he's certainly a villainous prat, but at least at Durmstrang they have the _conversation_. Viktor knows more Dark curses than any of us, but he also knows the long-term effects of every one of them--on the caster. He always said that the reason we were so afflicted with pillocks like Malfoy was that the Slytherins think that the Dark Arts are just a fun hobby, a way to get up Dumbledore's nose. But Dumbledore doesn't bother to recruit a decent Defense teacher, who might actually talk about exactly happens when you cast a Dark spell. Durmstrang has an awful reputation, but we're the ones who've had two civil wars and an unkillable Dark wizard in the past thirty years. Grindelwald was nasty, but they captured him in four years, and there hasn't been a serious Dark problem on the Continent in ages--well, unless you count the Muggles in Croatia, of course." Hermione had reached for a glass of water-for this was turning into a lecture, and the assembled witches sat expectantly around her--and launched, renewed, into the _denouement._

 

"It's all very well for Dumbledore to encourage bridge-building--and, actually, this Tri-Wizard thing was probably the only way to get stuffy old sticks like Maxime and Karkaroff over here; feed their pride and promise them gold and glory; so I suppose I can't complain too much--but it isn't going to do a lot of good so long as most of the students treat the whole issue like a Quidditch rivalry." Hermione's voice dropped. "There's a war coming, and very soon, and we're awfully under-prepared." This provoked a twitch of amusement on the faces of her audience, as the phrase and its' delivery were identical to Hermione's frequent exasperations when helping others revise for exams. "I don't say this to make anyone feel guilty. It's not fair. It's not fair that just being a decent, ordinary sort of witch isn't enough, that not practicing hexes or learning Potions might get you killed. But it's true. Viktor thought so, too. He thought we had our heads in the sand. And half the people on _our side_ , whatever that means, who at least acknowledge that something's coming, are vainglorious prats with no idea how serious the situation’s become.”

 

A loud conversation, prompted by the telltale sound of an incoming Apparition, invades Luna's reminiscing. It's just beyond the normal range of her comprehension, and she doesn't feel nosy, or awake, enough to use magic. In any case, the source of the commotion is soon revealed, as Neville bursts into the sleeping-porch with Gabrielle Delacour in tow. They're carrying on a conversation--something about introductions, and cousins, and a meeting to soon be held; all very clubby and yet with a tinge of one-up-manship rising off Neville like steam--but they break it off in order for Gabrielle to give Luna a hug and a smacking kiss on each cheek.

 

Luna, bemused and startled into wakefulness rather more quickly than she would have liked, recalls that the _Gabrielle situation,_ as Ginny's owls termed it, has always rather confused her; not that they know each other well. Her older sister Fleur, for all of her cultural dislocation, is a pillar of the community: Important diplomatic position, war hero, married into one of the prominent families of the new state of affairs. Fleur is relentlessly practical, in an upper-class way. Gabrielle is more twisty. Underage--a kid, really--at the beginning of Recent Events, she grew up waiting for each owl from a glorious big sister running a secret army base in a vicious foreign war. In case of reprisals, the Delacours' Paris townhouse was heavily fortified; Gabrielle spent her vacations at Beauxbatons and her parents rarely ventured outside, despite the general safety of the city. By the tail end of the war, she had managed to harass her parents into allowing her to join many of her classmates and teachers as a coastwatcher in Normandy.

 

Now she's studying something like Herbology at a Muggle university in France, but she pops up in England with some regularity. Gabrielle has always combined a wanton glamour that Fleur, for all of her beauty, never possessed, with the inward focus of an obsessed scientist. Neville, who at least shares the second part, has been friends with her for ages; there are rumors of more, but Luna prefers not to speculate. Actually, that would be misleading. It's more that she genuinely can't tell. Neither can Ginny, in whose case it's not an academic question--although they're nothing so _codified_ as partners at the moment, she and Neville have been dancing around their mutual intentions for a while now.

 

Luna can see why this would be hard for Neville to figure out; assuming Gabrielle has, indeed, made a move. Gabrielle, except for the odd weekend on the continent partying with aristocratic Muggles, is very much Neville's speed. They Apparate off to far-flung corners of Britain to look for rare plants, and since Gabrielle actually has some Potions skill, they're able to do practical science with their discoveries; they've already had a modest success with a patented potion to soothe broom-sickness, _"which affects up to one quarter of the Wizarding population."_ That would be Ginny snarking, after hearing their advertisements, written by her brother George, on the radio. Ginny, as she tells Luna immediately afterward, does try hard not to be bitter, but the Ministry's latest delays in her employment have gotten her tetchy, and in what corner of probability did Fate invent a glamorous French _child_ who just happens to enjoy wading in swamps and differentiating saxifrages, anyway?

 

With Ginny, of course, Neville's attraction would appear to be simple, in history if not in genesis. They were team players, junior ones at first, then brutally thrust into being co-captains; officers in a prison camp, more or less. Even their great wounds seem to have some compensatory symmetry, Neville's lack of a family somehow equaling Ginny's estrangement from hers, early on when she could have used them. More than anyone else, they had borne prolonged suffering, they had taken it, dealt with it, survived. It would have been impossible for them not to have developed a bond, and indeed, it's not very different from what they share with Luna, Hermione, a few others who had been captured by the enemy, or otherwise under their control. And that might be the problem. The first few weeks after the war had been a grief-limned tunnel, through which they were dragged by parents, teachers, older Order members, with the promise that they, too, had been there, had survived this orphan factory, although they made certain not to ascribe their own survival to much but luck.

 

Bill and Fleur, being a mid-way point in age, and possessing a suitable location, had become the den parents, and gently pushed the elders a safe distance away. The kitchen at Shell Cottage became a softly-lit vortex of war stories old and new, tentative and yet solemnly accepted plans for the future, and some very literal healing of wounds, fueled by a seemingly endless supply of Irish coffee. They slept in haphazard shifts; few wanted sleep potions. Andromeda Tonks, more than the other elders, seemed to pass muster with Bill, and she became a frequent visitor to the kitchen, which is where Ginny and Luna learned to babysit.

 

Luna makes polite conversation about the broom-sickness potion and the health of Delacours _pere et maman_ while Neville looks slightly embarrassed, but soon Gabrielle has led her into another, shorter recap of her travels. At the mention of the Harz Institut, Gabrielle perks up and evinces a real interest.

“You don't happen to actually speak it, do you?”

Ah, but she does. Translation charms have some natural weaknesses, even in this modern era (Luna chuckles inwardly at the mental image of the severe grimace Hermione makes whenever wizards think they're being _modern_ ) and noun cases are a prime example. Papa taught her German, and she had further lessons at Hogwarts from Penelope. Gabrielle's eyes flick to Neville's. He's no longer looking embarrassed at the length of social niceties—now he has the faint glint of calculation in his eye, which would have seemed like an obvious joke years ago, but which now recalls, to Luna, some very brave and clever moments, back at Hogwarts in the last days under the Carrows. He nods at Gabrielle. Luna has the vague idea she's being fitted up for a job, and wonders when they'll cut to the chase.

 

As it happens, not quite as soon as she'd have expected, or liked. Neville has inherited the aristocratic compulsion to circle any discussion of paying work—of money, or really the _needing_ of such—as if he were lining up a Piper Cub for a tricky landing on a Hebridean beach at low tide, and Gabrielle is no better. She attempts to sort out what her feelings actually might _be_ , about the prospect of a job; but meanwhile Neville and Gabrielle have moved on to discussing what seems to be…

 

Three days later, Neville brings up the subject of _benefits_. Given his noted aversion to discussing money, he seems like an odd choice, but perhaps they (for this seems like a jointly prepared talk) thought that coming from Bill it would reek of turfing-out. Which, Neville is at first pains to emphasize, is not the intent. ‘ _At all. After all, you’ve barely stayed here a sliver of the time the rest of us have. And they’ve made it very clear that they see this as their role. And they have a very nice_ chateau _if they feel the need to get away. In the Languedoc, I think. Nice house, from the pictures, pity about the wine.”_ No, the gist, in case she’s forgotten, is that she’s owed. Through a combination of expertly-exploited guilt on the part of the ‘silent majority’ both inside the Ministry and out, and the immutable fact of the growing influence of the War generation in the Ministry, Luna and a good number of her classmates are eligible for a standardized package of veterans’ benefits. Her Order of Merlin bumps this up a grade. And, while Neville is careful not to promise anything, there may yet be more. “Not that all the bumps are quite ironed out, yet, but that private prosecution of the Malfoys you signed on for—and thanks for getting back to us about that, too, I do understand that you were in some remote bit of Carpathia—has come along some distance. We’ve had to restrict it to anyone who was actually held at the Manor, and the award certainly won’t be the whole Malfoy estate—like it or not, the Ministry wants that for itself—but I’d be surprised if you didn’t come out of it with enough for a couple of years on the Grand Tour, if you wanted to continue”. He grimaces. Discussing blood money in such bloodless terms doesn’t come easily to him.

 

Luna honestly hasn’t thought much about it. Her small inheritance from her mother had been quite sufficient for her year and a half of rustic travel. And owing to her father’s distrust of the Ministry, years before anyone else’s, she has an unusually flexible sort of account, routed through the Zurich Gringotts office. She’s about to defer this conversation towards a later, not to mention more wakeful time, but is saved the trouble by the sudden arrival of Bill and Fleur themselves, at which time all hope of rest must be abandoned, but so too all talk of duties, and of gold.

 

~

 

Arthur Weasley, panting slightly, flung open the door to the research lab—otherwise known as the Burrow’s garden shed, recently expanded internally by an acknowledged expert in such matters—and flung down an alarming object on the workbench. “I don’t know how they did it, but the legs won’t un-fuse. Mind you, the Petrification’s all mine; you don’t want to hear the sounds it was making.” The Founder and CEO of Zarathustra Security, Ltd looked up from the other end of the bench, where she was jotting some notes on a legal pad. _Wouldn’t you Muffliato it, then?_ ran through her brain, before she took in the full scenario and granted that the thrashing-aspect of a garden gnome whose legs seemed to have been turned into a single, grotesque tentacle might also present a problem best solved by wholesale immobilization.

 

“Oh dear. Did you try de-Confunding it?” Arthur looked puzzled. “Why?” “Because,” Hermione Grainger gritted her teeth and considered, not for the first time, the inherent problems with hiring the father of George Weasley, not to mention _Ron_ (which was really another matter entirely), “I think they Confunded it to make it do that to itself. Gnomes have a surprising amount of power when it comes to self-mutability—they’re just not very smart.” She performed the requisite spells, the gnome’s legs reappeared, and she set it down outside the doors of the Research Lab before unfreezing it and adding just the hint of a suggestion to walk in the opposite direction. “Actually, that could be a potential security risk. A sort of Imperius mixed with Polyjuice. And gnomes are everywhere, nobody thinks of them as a potential threat vector.” Arthur cleared his throat. “Indeed. Thank you, also. I swear, there hasn’t been a week since—well, really, since Charlie was old enough to walk—that I haven’t wondered how this house hasn’t exploded—or been permanently Transfigured into a rutabaga—or floated off the surface of the earth.” He shook his hair out of his eyes and used a grimy index finger to push a regulation pair of Muggle safety goggles up the bridge of his nose.

 

On the other hand, Hermione silently granted, she had hired Arthur because of his _experience_ (well, that and his general unflappable demeanor, and his exceedingly rare scientific approach to magic), and a large part of that derived from a lifetime of dealing with his creatively misbehaving progeny. And really, he had been very helpful, so far. It came as nothing resembling a surprise that the scientific method, to say nothing of _peer-reviewed publication_ , was still barely a whisp on the horizon of Wizarding Britain in the twenty-first century. But she hadn’t really considered how deep this omission went. The building-blocks of basic science—the kind of thing that in the Muggle world had been first dreamed up by dog-flaying Royal Society men and completed by Mechanical Age early-Victorians—were largely nonexistent, or possibly locked up in the Department of Mysteries. Time and time again, she would reach for a reference work, only to forget that the world she lived in lacked them utterly. In this regard, Arthur had often been a saving grace. Merlin knew how he had found the time, raising seven children and serving as one of the stouter trees in the Order, but time and time again, she would be cursing the lack of empirical parameters, and Arthur would dig up a dingy notebook which contained at least a coherent log of experiments conducted. In his off-hours, in a collapsing shed at the bottom of a gnome-infested garden in Ottery St Catchpole. On the rare occasions she sat back to contemplate her surroundings, Hermione sometimes gave a little shudder. Scientific progress—Wizard or Muggle—occurred in fits and starts, blooming wherever entropy and chance didn’t snuff it out. Seeing a bloom in its’ original mud was a beautiful and privileged thing to witness, and terrifying in its randomness for all the same reasons. She wasn’t sure that the establishment of wizarding scientific institutions would be her life’s work—but it ought to be someone’s. Even natural history, which counted as the bright spot in scientific knowledge on this side the border—wealthy Victorian wizards had been just as keen as their Muggle counterparts for the African safari and the specimen jar—had serious gaps closer to home. Gnomes, for example, had very little coverage in the literature, despite some very interesting properties. She shook her head and returned, wand in hand in lieu of marker, to the design of a complicated anti-werewolf alarm circuit on the standard-issue Muggle whiteboard affixed to the close wall, reminding herself that she had better finish up by eight to be assured of time to prepare for that evening’s party.

 

~

 

“Congratulations, Dean! And to the permanent scouring of Celestina Warbeck from the airwaves of Britain!” George Weasley raises a flagon of butterbeer, and the rest of them follow suit as, appropriately, a rousing Muggle number (something about _not going to take it any more_ , delivered with a cheerful American snarl) plays in the background. Hermione grins along with everyone else and takes a sip of butterbeer. She has to admit, life is full of surprises. If you had asked her a few years ago, if she would have guessed that _secretly being a witch_ , followed by _serving as chief strategist in a desperate two-and-a-half-person-crusade-against-a-deranged-fascist-with-severe-commodity-fetish-issues_ would, in ineffable time, lead to _being close personal friends with the_ _Mark Zuckerberg of magical broadcasting_ , she would have taken a pass. She manages a surreptitious glance at the surroundings. Far from her to begrudge Dean his success, but she does have to marvel at fate, a little. Her success was always assumed, so much so that some of the pitfalls have been a little embarrassing, although overall the company is growing quite well—and those talks with the Slovakian Ministry, if they bear fruit, would really punt ZS, Ltd, into the next tier… No, she’s not jealous. If anything, Dean’s success is a good reminder to never underestimate a simple idea, perfectly executed, at exactly the right time. Good on him, he’s had a good idea and followed through. And he’s been the picture of modesty, really; set a good example for what she assumes will be the hordes of Wizarding entrepreneurs to follow. They’re in a very smart, but not unduly ornate or oil-baron tacky two-story mansion block in Kentish Town. There’s a brand-new Bang + Olufsen stereo system front and center, some modern furniture, a small Mondrian on the wall next to a portrait of Dean’s sisters he drew himself.

 

No. Not jealous. But amazed. The fog of pureblood opprobrium has lifted enough to make all sorts of businesses, commonplace in the Muggle world, suddenly relevant to younger wizards and witches. Of course, there isn’t total symmetry—magic simply negates the need for plenty of gadgets—but the information sphere is ripe for disruption. And as far as mass culture goes, it might as well be the final years of Radio One. Fair play to Dean, he didn’t try to negotiate a new monopoly on radio with the Ministry—he simply raised venture capital, made a license application, and gambled that the new regime in that corner of the Ministry (as it turns out, a couple of barely-out-of-Hogwarts Ravenclaws who were hired immediately postwar to replace war casualties) would hear him out. Hermione, personally, suspects that the _new regime_ would have practically kissed Dean’s feet once he mentioned _wi-fi_ and _Menlo Park_ , such is the sudden vogue for select Muggle cross-overs these days among a certain set.

 

The rowdy Americans on the hi-fi are replaced by New Order, which she at least remembers from childhood (and which provokes an anecdote within hearing range about Martin Hannett being a Squib), and Dean, having said a few words of welcome, starts introducing his old Hogwarts mates to the representatives of his American financiers. The age span of this little soirée is roughly arms-breadth from what other, more fortunate generations might term their _graduating class,_ although a decent proportion of the young wizards and witches in this room have gaps in their educations wide enough to drive a Hipogriff through, to go along with their scars and sleepless nights, for all that they’re quickly ascending into the leading ranks of their peculiar society. Arthur Weasley, spiffed-up beyond any degree Hermione thought possible in the pre-war, is the exception that proves the rule, and she can see Dean eying him from across the room. Hermione’s brows furrow. Dean’s certainly a friend, and it’s not as if they’re in the same industry—but the simple fact is that Arthur spits out magical technology ideas at a prodigious rate, used to no more response than the eye-rolling of his wife and children. Dean would be wise to listen, and knows it. Her attention is drawn away, however, by the appearance of a far rarer bird who has just hung up her voluminous outer robe—a cerulean object that combines _eye-popping_ with _antique_ in that way that only eccentric Purebloods can, and which still startles Hermione—and is accepting a small-batch Butterbeer from one of the Americans.

 

Hermione turns back towards her triangulated intercept course for both Arthur and Dean, but the cog in the back of her head labeled _What to think of Luna Lovegood, really_ is beginning to slowly turn, and throw off nearly four years worth of dust.


End file.
